Cumbria’s first Reform UK councillor has spoken to Cumbria Crack about his win and plans for the future.
Chris Colley, 43, of Egremont, won a seat on the town council’s south ward earlier this year with 359 votes, beating candidates from Labour (226 votes) and the Conservatives (156 votes) – making him Cumbria’s first Reform UK councillor.
It was described as a success for Reform UK, which is led by Nigel Farage and has been called a prime challenger to Britain’s main traditional parties.
Chris, a father-of-four who has worked in construction his whole life, said he was keen to go for the role after attending a few Reform UK meetings and being encouraged by David Surtees, who ran for as Reform UK’s candidate for Whitehaven and Workington MP last year.
He said: “It was a good feeling to win and quite daunting to be the first Cumbrian Reform UK councillor, but it’s now the work starts.
“I’ve just been to my first town council meeting and everyone has been very welcoming and helpful so far.
“As a council, it’s more about what’s the right thing for us in Egremont and local people needing help and assistance with things like social housing.
“A lot of it I wasn’t expecting, but I suppose a lot of it I didn’t know what to expect, it’s happened so quick.
“I work for the town in this job, and it’s for what people want and our primary aim is to look after the town and try and do the right thing.
“We’ve said to each other we’re not interested in your background and your banner, we’re more interested in what we do for the town and each other.”
Chris said he decided to join Reform UK as he felt they were working with the interest of the people at their core.
He said: “I think it feels like Reform are going to look after us as opposed to others. They’ve got the people’s interests at heart and they’re willing to do what needs to be done to get there, that’s what it feels like at the moment.
“I agree with some of their principles, looking after our own so to speak. I want infrastructure here, personally I’m very pro the Whitehaven coal mine if you ask me but obviously that’s changed now. But there’s no reason why that can’t change in the future.
“We’ve got our own people that need help, but at the same time I’ve done this I’ve realised that there’s a lot that can be done in the town.
“I think a lot of people maybe voted for me because they know me and know my personality and have some trust in me, and obviously there will have been some others who voted for the Reform banner.
“It may well be that people have lost their faith in other parties, but that’s just an assumption.”
While Chris said he was happy to be part of the party, he added that he did not consider himself to be a stereotypical Reform UK member.
He said: “I wouldn’t consider myself stereotypical Reform, but most of us aren’t. I think it’s just a quick assumption or accusation from others who just say ‘oh you’re racist’ and ‘you don’t care’ and it’s just silly.
“I don’t want to be a ‘I am Reform, I will do this, I will do that’ because that’s the wrong way. It’s just like construction, you’ve got a problem and you need to put a solution together that’s workable and achievable.
“You get accused of being a racist straight away, but I firmly believe it is nothing to do with racism and it’s to do with looking after your own people and our own people are all creeds, colours and sexes and backgrounds and they’re British.
“I’ve been called racist a couple of times now, which is not nice. I don’t believe I am and hopefully my actions prove that.
“But I’m happy to be associated with Reform, I support a lot of their ideals and we need to bring them into practice, and they need to be more structured and ready to go should we get in power in the future.”
Chris added that while he agrees with several policies and ideas that Reform UK has included in their manifesto, there are others he does not agree with.
He said: “There’s all sorts in there, some things I don’t agree with and other things I’m really passionate about like the £20,000 tax-free threshold.
“But we’ve got to start in our own little place and also it needs to be paid for and thought about properly. You can promise the world but you’ve got to produce it if you get into power.
“There is a big span of people in the party and there is that side that we don’t want to be associated with but on the other side there’s people with the right reasons and right intentions.
“It’s not a case of we don’t care about anybody else, but we’ve got to sort our own house out, so to speak, we’ve got a lot of issues that we need to deal with within ourselves as the British people.
“The obvious one we all go on about is we spend a lot of money down on the south coast, and that money could be spent elsewhere and that has been discussed multiple times around the country.
“That’s a big one, but we need to sort ourselves out and I think we need a bit more infrastructure and we need to do our own things, hence why I back the mine and stuff and in an ideal world we’d make our own steel again in Cumbria.
“But we’ve got things like the Moorside project, which Josh MacAlister has been working towards, which is very positive.
“There’s money needed all over the place and it needs to be prioritised within the right place, but that’s on a national stage, which I have no involvement in, as I’m just a town councillor.”
Chris said that he felt the topic of illegal immigration – a core policy topic for Reform UK – was relevant to both West Cumbria and Egremont.
He said: “As we’re all aware, we need legal immigration all over the UK. That is not what we’re talking about, legal immigration is what keeps us going.
“There are concerns that illegal immigration is on its way to our local area, there’s job advertisements for immigration managers and there seems to be a lot of HMOs being applied for. That’s not to suggest it’s for them, but it raises a potential concern.
“I don’t know exact numbers and locations, and I won’t pretend to know the extent of it. But you need to look at each situation in its own right, I’m not just going to say no to this and no to that, it needs to be looked at and discussed with other councillors.
“For me it goes back to what the town wants, if they’re for or against certain things that sways my approach. So when things come in I’d speak to the locals and put it on my socials for comments and get a feel for what their thoughts are.
“I’d like to think I’ll do what I say I’m going to do, and people can have confidence with that.”
Chris also said he did not agree with the party’s stance on ‘transgender ideology’, which it claims is doing irreversible harm to children.
He said: “People can do what they like. As long as they don’t bother other people, I’m not against anything. If they’re happy and they’re happy in their own little world, they are what they are and that’s up to them.
“I’m not a there’s only two genders sort of person, because I understand there isn’t for all sorts of reasons. As long as they’re happy within themselves and not upsetting anybody else.”
Chris also spoke on the stepping down of Reform UK chairman Zia Yusef last week – who over the weekend rejoined the party in a different role.
It came after one of Reform UK’s newest MPs called for a blanket ban on burqas, a veil worn by some Muslim women that covers the face and body, being worn in the UK which Yusef is alleged to have called dumb in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
He said: “We had a big upset with it last week. I can imagine it being a lot of pressure and responsibility for Zia with the position he’s in and I can imagine it’s not just that one incident that’s been it, I’m sure it’s built of other things.
“When I’ve listened to him and watched videos he’s come across really well and positive to myself, but that’s just my opinion.
“On the burqa topic, if it is an issue we need to discuss it and to what extent and see if we should do something about it and if so what. It needs to be discussed as opposed to a blanket ban.
“He is a very busy man in his own work as well and we don’t know what is going on in the background and there’s bound to be other influences to it.
“He won’t have just done it on one comment. There is various things going on with various party members as we see in the news and I think we need to settle down and focus on what is important.
“It’s still early days for the party, it’s still less than 12 months old and that’s why Zia came in to get some structure and his input has been really good in my opinion, but I think we need to settle down and focus on the reason why Reform is here.”
While Chris said he had no big goals as a town councillor just yet, he said he was keen to help residents with concerns as well as work on existing projects for the town.
He also said he had been working with residents regarding anti-social behaviour issues in the town and has recently joined the Egremont Crab Fair committee, while also attending meetings regarding plans to install a solar farm on Dent fell – which drew controversy earlier this year.
He said: “At present I haven’t got any aims or goals, it’s just to try and do what I’ve been brought into do I suppose, which varies from day-to-day.
“But in the short term, I’m speaking with people who are asking me to help them out.
“When I was doing some campaigning I spoke to some of then people in Gulley Flats way and they were a bit nervous walking through the castle at night with their kids and the intimidation and things.
“Again I don’t think the kids realise the effect they have on people. I think if they did they wouldn’t do it as much. They might think it’s a bit of banter and fun but it’s not nice to walk past a gang of people.
“At the moment the council has a few things going on Aldi, hopefully some more businesses moving in, wanting to be a bit more prosperous and activity and if things come along I can help out with I’ll get involved.”
